Here’s Looking at You, Kid

an accidental romance in fifteen parts

by Douglas

Chapter 9 – Hope

“So, you’ve got everything?” I asked Cole, for the second time.

“Yes, Mother.” That ironic look, again.

Oakland International, the drop-off point outside the terminal. Cole and me facing each other on the sidewalk, my car blinking its flashers by the curb. People jostling and milling and wrestling their luggage around; and we had about thirty seconds before the airport police would swoop down and make me move along.

It was just another weekend in Santa Monica with his dad, for Cole. But it was the first time I’d ever dropped him off at the airport. And the first weekend-in-Santa-Monica since the day at the beach; I was going to miss him.

Besides. I’ve always hated airport goodbyes.

“Call me?” I went. Simply.

And I saw from the flash passing over his face – I wasn’t alone. Cole was feeling it, too.

“Yeah,” he said, quietly. “From my other cell.”

He’d gotten a supermarket, prepaid-cell phone. Just for trips and times like this. So we could have at least a little privacy, anyway.

That connection – that phone connection – might be one of the few things in our lives that was private, one of the few chances we had for any kind of privacy, going forward. Thanks to recent developments.

“You’re worrying again,” he said. Looking at my face. He reached over and squeezed my arm, lightly. “I told you, we’ll work it out. Derrick and Drew already said we could use their place, sometimes . . . and it’s all happening next semester, anyway.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t want to talk about it, right then.

“And besides,” he went on, twisting his mouth, a little, “we’ll always have the beach, we didn’t have, we’d lost it – ”

“Stop it! That’s a permanent goodbye scene.” From ‘Casablanca’. Of course.

“That’s not what I meant!” he said, looking a little hurt. “I just meant we can always go to the beach. For, like, when we want to fuck – ”

“Shhhhh!” I looked around, cringing. “Jesus, Cole – ”

“But we can. Right?”

“Yeah; yeah.” If the weather warmed up again; if we could get one of the driftwood shelters to ourselves, after it DID warm up, and more people showed up at the beach –

I breathed out, and looked at him; and changed the subject. “And you know, if you get a chance to work on your paper, you could email me; I’ll be glad to look it over, more.” Meaning, The Paper From Hell, on the English and American Civil Wars. It was shaping up to be a brilliant paper, actually; and a lot of fun, in some ways, but a total pain in other ways.

“Yes, Mother,” he said again, with that ironic look again, and he hoisted his gym bag up on his shoulder.

I squinched up my eyes. “Doesn’t it give you a kind of oedipal thing, to call me ‘mother’?” I asked. Lightly. With a little irony of my own.

“Nah. When I talk to my mom, I call her Jeannine.” That Cole half-smile, that tilt to his head, as he looked in my eyes.

“Ah. That explains everything.”

A traffic cop a few yards down began blowing his whistle and waving his arms, at some other driver double-parked at the curb. An airport van pulled in front of my Mini Cooper, and the driver came out and started banging open the back doors, and yanking out bags.

“I’ll call you,” went Cole, a little more softly. “And I’ll think of places to show you, when you come up next month.”

“Cool.”

Christmas break was coming up – a lot longer break than a weekend; that was another thing I was trying not to think about. But I’d already told Cole, I’d drive up from San Diego, while he was spending time with his mom and dad in Santa Monica; maybe I’d drive up more than once. At least we’d get to spend some time together.

And then, all at once, by the curb, it was time to go.

“So,” I said, eloquently.

“C’mere,” went Cole, and then we were hugging, tight – it was way too public to kiss, or anything, but anybody can hug, right? – and then we were looking at each, again, my arms on his shoulders.

“’You’d better go, or you’ll miss that plane’,” I said, in my bad Bogart impersonation. One of the more famous lines from ‘Casablanca’.

Cole rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Like I wasn’t waiting for that one, all day.” And then he hugged me once more, fast, and held me at arm’s length. “You’ll pick me up Monday night?”

“Yep.”

“See you Monday,” he said, his eyes showing his feelings, and making my heart go faster –

And then he was gone.

I hate airport goodbyes.

*

I didn’t want to think about the bad news, during the lonely drive back to the campus; I really didn’t. I tried to think about other stuff instead, my finals, my own term paper, Cole’s soft brown hair, under my hands –

And of course it didn’t work.

Of course I thought about it. Of course I brooded about it.

Yeah. Derrick was going to go move in with Drew. Next semester. March, actually; mid-semester, sort of. Drew’s always-absent roommate was making himself permanently-absent, going off to a combined work-study program in public health in Eastern Europe –

And the thing is, it left all of us in bad positions; with bad choices. Or at least, choices that would wind up with some of us hurt. Inevitably. And we all knew it.

On one hand – Drew lived in a double; one room, two beds, no privacy. If he’d just gotten a brand-new roommate, assigned by the University, it meant – no sleepovers with Derrick, anymore. Ever.

And – well, theoretically, if that happened, Drew could come over to our suite instead, spend nights with Derrick –

But at the same time, Cole was going to be visiting me. To be ‘tutored’. Pretty frequently, actually.

Two openly gay roommates, with frequent, frequent male guests; and one of those guests underage.

On Rajiv’s floor.

It would never work. It just wouldn’t; and we all knew it, all four of us. It even – potentially – opened up Drew to being considered an accomplice to whatever crimes I was theoretically committing with Cole.

And that was something I wouldn’t permit. No way I was going to let that happen.

Derrick felt terrible about it. For my sake. For what his moving meant to my situation with Cole.

And of course – we’re all human – his own joy, at moving in with Drew, the unmitigated joy at what he’d found with Drew after all this time, just made him feel guiltier and worse about the whole situation, which made ME feel bad, that he’d be hurting at this moment when he should be feeling so much happiness . . .

Plus – just as an additional spice in the mix of my feelings – I was going to miss Derrick. I was going to miss his panic attacks after each and every date, and the way he’d sneak around and clean up our little kitchenette after I’d already cleaned it – trying not to let me see – and I’d miss having espresso with him, each morning –

I really did love Derrick, and I was going to miss living with him.

None of our choices was good.

*

I put in a few solid hours of reviewing, back in my room, before giving up, and calling Mark; just to see if he wanted to hang out.

And his pleasure at hearing me, on a Saturday, made a fresh wave of guilt wash over me.

Derrick and I used to do a lot more with Matt and Giovanni and Mark, before – well, before the pool party. Before Drew and Cole.

We should have – I should have – tried harder. To stay closer to them. Especially on weekends . . .

“Perfect timing!” he went, in his kind of goofy, Boy-Scout-enthusiastic way. “We were just headed over to Strada, to get some treats. You guys can meet us there!”

“Great,” I said, stretching out to ease the kink in my back. “Cool. It’s just me, though; Derrick’s off . . . studying.”

He was off with Drew, of course. But it would have been a little weird for me to say he was off on a date; as far as I knew, he hadn’t told anybody else about Drew.

“Oh. Okay. Well, meet you there in half an hour?”

“Cool.” I smiled at the phone as I closed it.

Back last semester, last year, cake and coffee at Strada – this really nice coffee shop on Bancroft, right off the edge of the campus, with mostly open-air seating – coffee at Strada was one of our Saturday traditions. For Derrick and me, and Matt and Giovanni and Mark, I mean.

And after the last high-priced sugar was downed, and the last high-octane espresso was consumed, we usually played a fairly crazed, energetic round of frisbee, or fooled around with a soccer ball, on the big, sloping lawn of the Memorial Glade, right near Doe Library, the biggest library at Cal.

So, I wound up playing my second game of frisbee in two weeks, on campus. All of us barefoot on the cool grass, as usual. Jumping, running; laughing and cheering when one of us caught an impossible throw, making good-natured noises when a toss was bad. Avoiding the other students stretched out or sitting on the oval-shaped lawn.

It felt – just wonderful; it was exactly what I needed, to work myself out of my mood, it was exactly what I needed physically, just to move my body –

And I wondered, as I ran, what these three straight boys would say, if they knew that one week ago I’d been playing frisbee, naked, with four naked, college-age girls. Beautiful ones, too, if I was any judge.

Well, me and my sixteen-year-old boyfriend, too. Of course.

I was still flashing back to that, and still smiling to myself, when we finally collapsed, panting, on the driest and highest part of the lawn; glowing, happy, alive, grinning at each other.

“That was fun,” Mark went, between breaths; his face Boy Scout-wholesome, shiny with sweat.

“Derrick’ll be jealous when I tell him about it,” I said, smiling. Reminiscing.

Total shift in mood. All at once, the three of them – except for Matt, maybe – were looking away.

Actually, Matt was looking at me, shrewdly, from underneath those dark, curly eyebrows of his . . .

I should explain.

Mark and Giovanni are both Asian – Mark’s a Li, Giovanni’s a Chan, and in spite of the fact that they’re as totally different as cheese and salt, they could almost be brothers, physically; they borrow each other’s clothes, and everything.

Matt’s different. He’s six foot four – we measured, once – and thin, Jewish, with curly-dark hair and a cute, curly, scraggly beard and intense blue eyes, and his voice – when he says anything – is so DEEP, like some deep woodwind instrument, I swear –

But the thing is – he’s brilliant. Even among Berkeley students, he’s terrifyingly brilliant; he’s a math major, and he turned down MIT and Cornell and god knows who else, because he wanted to go to Cal.

And he doesn’t say much.

When he does talk – with words, I mean; he does a lot of his communicating with expressions, and shrugs, and the way he LOOKS at you – when he does talk, we listen.

Not that it always makes sense. Sometimes what he says is kind of – indirect. Elliptical.

Sometimes it’s the next day when you sit up and go, ‘oh, THAT’s what he meant . . . ’

So right then, it was Matt looking up at me, with those seeing, light-blue eyes.

“Revenge and redemption are mutually exclusive, aren’t they?” he said. Sounding like a deep-toned oboe, if an oboe could talk.

“Ummmmm . . . ” I went, doubtfully. As I tried to parse it. I was dimly aware of Mark and Giovanni looking suddenly, deeply uncomfortable.

Matt just looked at me, a little sideways, with a shrug and a small smile. “Cole,” he fluted; and he looked at me some more. Closer.

“Uhhh . . . ” I blinked; once, twice.

Concerned.

I mean, they all HAD already met Cole; first at the Rocky Horror Picture Show night, when we all had such a good time . . . and then, often enough, over dinner. In one of the dining halls.

The little brat’s never been shy about talking with my friends.

But . . .

“Cole?” I went. A little weakly.

Matt just cocked an expressive eyebrow at me; it was Mark who stirred, still looking uncomfortable.

“Um . . . I know it’s not any of our business, Jeremy . . . ”

Oh, shit.

“ . . . but I just wanted to tell you, I think it’s really great, really cool, that you and Derrick are still, like . . . friends?”

It so clearly came out as a question that I would’ve laughed, if I weren’t so confused. “What do you mean, still friends?”

Mark’s open face flushed darker, and it was Giovanni’s turn, like it usually was when something blunt needed saying. “Really, Jer, it’s not like we didn’t notice. Derrick’s got a new boyfriend, and then, like really soon after, you show up with Cole – ”

“Oh, no,” I started.

Mark shot an embarrassed look over at Giovanni. “It REALLY isn’t any of our business . . . but, you know, I just think it’s, like, really sad – you guys were together so long, and you were so tight – and, you know, if you want to talk about it, or anything, we’re here for you.”

The last part came out in a rush, and his Boy Scout face was shining, earnest; honestly concerned. Matt made a kind of fluting agreement, and nodded his head.

“No, no, no,” I went again; and I covered my eyes. “Oh, no.” I brought my hands down, to face them. “Guys . . . you don’t think . . . Derrick and I were, like, a couple? Like, ever - ?”

Three faces looking at me, blinking; like deer in the headlights. If deer blink.

“Uhhh . . . ” from Mark.

“You mean . . . you aren’t? Weren’t?” from Giovanni. Sounding confused.

“No! I mean, Jesus.” I wiped my hand over my face, and looked around; then back at Giovanni. “You really thought - ? All this time? Oh, Lord . . . ”

I’d been embarrassed, lately; a lot. Mostly thanks to my brat of a boyfriend. But this –

I guess it showed on my face; all three of them were looking as mortified as I felt, right then.

Which was saying a lot. I mean; knowing what they were THINKING, all this time; me and Derrick up in our suite . . . or all the times, this year, last year, when Derrick and I would go down the hall together in our bathrobes to take showers (in separate stalls, thank you!) –

“You guys just always seemed so . . . tight,” went Giovanni. “Like, you were always touching, or hugging each other . . . ” I could still see some doubt on his face.

“Oh, no! I mean, that’s just Derrick; he’s really demonstrative. He’s Greek,” I went on, a little helplessly; and the multiple definitions and connotations of the word, and the lameness of the explanation, kind of hung there, in the air, for a second, as we looked at each other, until Giovanni gave a kind of puff of escaped laugher, and that set ME off with a snort of my own, and then Mark –

And it went on and on, as the complete, utter, absurdity of the situation just kind of washed through us, one after another, and I couldn’t help it, I just kind of dissolved with laughter, and that set off Giovanni, which set off Mark, and Matt was tilting and shaking his head with a wry, expressive smile . . .

*

When we all settled down, after a while – I told them. About Derrick and Drew; and me and Cole. And about Derrick moving in with Drew next semester; everything.

But I didn’t say anything about our problem; Cole and me, I mean. Cole being underage.

I didn’t need to. They’d all met Cole.

And – I really didn’t know what to expect. I mean, Mark and Matt and Giovanni have always been so cool with us – with Derrick and me – but; but.

I’d just basically come out to them, about dating an underage boy. And yeah, dating across the age-of-consent line, the legal line, is pretty common, for boy-girl couples . . .

I didn’t know how far their tolerance stretched. I didn’t know what they’d think; about me, going with a younger guy. A high-school boy.

So as I told them our story – a slightly cleaned up version of it, anyway, leaving out the more scandalous details of the pool party and the beach – I was nervous; apprehensive. About their reaction.

“Oh, Jer,” went Mark. “Oh, man, that really sucks.” And his Evangelical-raised face was open, and full of honest sympathy, and then, on his other side, Matt leaned in with his long, long arm, and put his hand over mine and squeezed it, and flashed his own sympathy with one of his complex expressions, ice-blue eyes under dark eyebrows –

And I had some blinking of my own to do; in the face of this support, this understanding, from these friends I hadn’t been all that open, with . . .

But in the end, it was Giovanni’s reaction that meant the most to me. To us.

“So . . . ” he started, slowly. Leaning back. “Derrick’s moving out of your place – when?”

“Drew’s roommate is going the first of March; so I guess it’ll be pretty quick after that.”

“But Derrick has to break his contract for the room, right?” He shot me a look.

“Well, yeah. I’m not sure how it’ll work, though; maybe it’ll count as just changing roommates.” I hadn’t really wanted to think through all the details, yet.

Giovanni looked at me, a second. “I might,” he went, slowly, “know about an apartment coming up free. Just a studio; but it’s really close, it’s right off of Ellsworth.”

My heart thudded, once, twice; almost painfully. “Yeah?” I said.

He held up his hands. “Maybe; I’m not sure. But I’ve got this friend – you know, Tom the Chemistry guy?” He turned to Mark and Matt, and they nodded – “Well. Tom’s transferring to UCSB next semester; but since he’s a TA, he has to stay here ‘til January, almost the start of the next semester. But there’s a catch . . . ”

“Yeah?” I said, again. Still hopeful; every apartment in Berkeley – at least any apartment that rented to students – came with a catch.

Giovanni looked a little worried. “The thing is – he’s been there for years; since he was an undergraduate. He says the owners are okay – they live downstairs – but, they said they’ll have to do a lot of work, after he moves out, to bring it up to city code.”

“Which means - ?”

“It wouldn’t be ready too soon. I think.” He shrugged, apologetically. “I don’t really know; I could give you his number, so you could ask him - ?”

“Oh, man, would you? That would be so . . . ” I couldn’t find the words. “I’d really, really appreciate it . . . ”

I should explain this, too.

Berkeley is a college town; I love it, still, but the University is the industry, it’s what drives the whole city.

Housing – off-campus housing – is tight.

There are just way too many students wanting to live off-campus, for way too few apartments, and way, way too many questionable roommate arrangements, five-people-in-two-bedrooms kind of arrangements –

I’d already registered for off-campus housing with the University website, after Derrick broke the news. Of course.

But without much hope. Because, as a rule, a single-occupancy, off-campus apartment in Berkeley, the kind of apartment I needed, to get some private time with Cole – that kind of apartment only happened . . . when you knew somebody. When you had some kind of inside advantage.

And now – just maybe – Giovanni was telling me that I Knew Somebody. That I had a chance to have the kind of home where I could have Cole over, without roommate complications, without signing in with Security . . .

Without Rajiv the Narc. Without the narcs of the world.

And when Giovanni copied out Tom’s cell number, and gave it to me, I held on to it like I’d hold on to a life preserver.

Carefully. Cautiously. And maybe a little . . . superstitiously. Because of what it meant; what it might mean.

*

And after all that – we all knew how important the housing issue was, we all knew it came first –

After that, we had the chance to talk. And laugh; about the year-and-a-half long misunderstanding, about Derrick and me being a couple.

And I had the chance to really talk to them – really spill to them, actually – about Cole. Not just our story; but, my feelings. My feelings for Cole. Our feelings for each other.

Which, ultimately, was a deeply strange experience; exposing myself, exposing US, like that, to people who weren’t only Not Family, not in the way Drew and Derrick were family, but who also weren’t even . . . gay.

It took some relaxing. On my part. Especially once the conversation really got going.

“Dude,” Giovanni said, smiling; leaning back on his hands, against the slope of the lawn. “I can totally understand. He’s got a really strong personality, he’s really interesting to talk to. And he’s smart. And,” he went on, with a glint in his eyes, “he’s so beautiful, I’D do him, and I’m about as straight as you can get.”

I watched as Mark blinked at him.

As beautiful and open and Christian – in the best sense of the word – and loving as Mark could be . . . I saw, he could still be . . . surprised.

“What - ?” went Giovanni, a second later; leaning back, laughing at our expressions.

Well; Mark and Matt’s expressions, anyway.

“Sexual dimorphism,” fluted Matt, eventually. Amusement back in his blue eyes. “It’s always been your trope.”

Meaning – Giovanni’s always liked girls with big, uh, chests. Really liked them, actually.

“And why not? Some physical differences give evolutionary advantages. Bigger breasts mean more milk production, which means better survival odds for my children. My genome, actually; you could say it’s not my fault I like what I like, it’s just my genome expressing itself.”

Giovanni’s a biology major. In case there was any question about it.

“But . . . that doesn’t mean the difference between men and women is always useful,” he went on. Shaking his head.

“No?” It seemed like my place to ask it. As the one most removed from the issue.

“Not at all.” He looked between the three of us, still laughing a little. “Not for me, anyway. It was so clear to me, all last year, when I was going with Caitlyn. Our sexual dimorphism was developed to the point that we’re almost like different species. I mean . . . I never, ever figured out what she was thinking! Sometimes I was sure I had her figured out, and we’d be getting along really, really well, and we were really happy, and then . . . wham. One thing; one moment, one thing I said, and she’d cut me off completely, not talk to me, even, for a week.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how many times it happened. A lot.”

I saw Mark and Matt share a quick glance; and Matt’s eloquent eyebrow-twitch.

We’d all lived this drama, last year; Gio’s ‘moments’ tended to happen at certain . . . delicate times. Intimate times.

Okay; when they were making out. Or having sex.

“I thought,” went Mark, just a little cautiously, “you’d established a pattern, for when . . . that kind of thing happened?”

We all had. Listening to Giovanni over dinner, as he told us of his latest she-shot-me-down-and-I’m-in-the-dumps story. Usually revolving around Gio saying something hugely, innocently wrong, at just the right moment. The right romantic moment.

“Of course,” Gio went; shaking his head. “Of course. I know, I’m a genius at mouthing off. But the point is, I could say one thing Monday, and it would be fine, and say the same thing Tuesday, and she’d be totally pissed at me, and I never knew when it was a good time or a bad time! And it’s all because of exaggerated sexual dimorphism. And,” he went on, a little thoughtfully, “maybe lunar cycles, too.” He shook his head again, laughing at himself, now; and then he looked at me.

“Yeah. It’s all due to sexual dimorphism. Which means, I am so, so jealous of you!”

“Me?” I was startled. “Why?”

“You like guys! I mean, it must be so easy for you. Don’t you think?” This, to Mark and Matt; and Matt’s amused eyes said it all. Gio turned back to me. “For us – the three of us – our relationships are these weird negotiations with a different species, where we never know where we stand – especially, especially when it comes to sex. Right?”

I saw Mark blush a little darker, out of the corner of my eye. With his upbringing, I wasn’t sure if he’d even kissed a girl, yet.

“I mean, for us, it’s all a pursuit, and a delicate negotiation, with lots of failures and misunderstandings, and, like, totally different agendas; all because of dimorphism. Our genomes – as guys – want to express themselves with as many partners as possible, as often as possible, and girls’ genomes tell them to limit themselves to the fewest partners, the most successful partners, the ones who can provide THEM with the best survival prospects through childbirth, and child rearing . . . ”

“Hypothetically,” warned Matt. Musically-low.

Gio just looked at him. “Like, you don’t think that’s how it works? How it REALLY works? Just look at them!” And he pointed over to a group of pigeons, on the lawn, near us.

And – yeah. It seemed like, for every pigeon wandering around, pecking at the ground – there was another one following it, puffing out his chest, making noises, strutting, showing off . . .

And not getting very far. The females just ignored them, mostly; they walked around, pecking the ground, keeping casually out of the way.

“See? I mean, that’s us, that’s the heterosexual human condition. But for you – for you and Cole – it must be so easy! No moods, no negotiating, no wondering what the other person really WANTS – just, ‘I’m horny. Want to fuck?’  ‘Sure!’”. He shook his head, admiringly. “Isn’t that what it’s like, for you guys?”

And I didn’t say anything, and Mark was flushing bright, now – the word ‘fuck’ does that to him – and Matt’s face was screwed up in his inquisitive-amusement mode . . .

And Giovanni started laughing. Looking at me, and laughing, and laughing.

“It is! Oh, it really fucking is like that, for you guys! You see?” he went, to Mark and Matt. “Just look at his face!” He broke up again, falling backwards down on the grass, arms out, shaking his head as he laughed. “Oh, my god,” he went on, gasping, “I am SO jealous of you . . . ”

*  *  *  *  *

Thank you for reading! Comments are always deeply appreciated, at dlgrantsf@yahoo.com.